Right-wingers - how would you fix the left?

[MarxSchmarx]

I'm genuinely curious - all you cappies, anti-leftists, OIers, etc..., let's just put your convictions about society aside for the moment.

Suppose some leftist group had a wealthy benefactor and, being the soul-less hypocrites you are, put out an ad for a non-leftist consultant who was nevertheless sufficiently fair to do the job they were hired to do and offer some concrete advice in exchange for considerable renumeration.

What would you recommend to leftists? How do you think they could raise their profile, possibly out-manouevre your ilk, and abolish capitalism? What advice would you, as an outside consultant, give to this leftist group?

Before I thank you suckers for the free advice, I guess I should clarify that I be interested in seeing if the right wingers have any CONSTRUCTIVE criticism of the left as a movement.

[Ostrinski]

I like this idea. Perhaps we should do the same in return.

[Night Ripper]

My advice:

Show the world that communism works. Go move to some communist society and write about how awesome life is there. If you can't find a suitable one, start one. If your ideology is so great, people will eventually become interested in it naturally. That's what we're trying to do with the New Hampshire thing.

No charge.

[Prinskaj]

My advice:

Show the world that communism works. Go move to some communist society and write about how awesome life is there. If you can't find a suitable one, start one. If your ideology is so great, people will eventually become interested in it naturally. That's what we're trying to do with the New Hampshire thing.

This has been tried before, in anarchist Catalonia, the Paris commune, the Free Territory in Ukraine, and has failed, because of two things. (Albeit that they were not socialist nor communist, but they were at least progressive).
A) External pressure: These three instances were destroyed by the states operating the countries that they were created in. Franco's Spain destroyed Catalonia, The Third Republic crushed the Paris Commune, and the Free Territory in Ukraine was smashed by the Soviets.
B) Isolationism: These examples failed also because they didn't spread, which made implementing a new mode of production impossible, because of the lack of resources that isolated territories have.

[Genghis]

Follow the example of a man I admire - Robert Owen who tried to create a Socialist village. He reasoned that when his village prove to be successful the rest of the world would want to live in a commune where everything is shared and everyone was equal.

There is no need for revolution; no need to kill anyone. Just lead by example. I admire him because he had ideals, was not violent and he was willing to put his money where his mouth was. But he was dead wrong of course.

His New Harmony commune failed simply because humans are basically selfish. Once you take away the profit motive and private property, people do not want to work but prefer to live off the fruits of someone else's labor.

Interestingly, he started New Harmony by buying over a religious commune called Harmony started by George Rapp .

Rapp's commune was successful as he was able to get his followers to share and work hard. So don't knock religion. If the SU had made use of religion where earthly sacrifices are compensated for by heavenly rewards, it might have worked better.

By the way, the religious kibbutzes in Israel lasted much longer than the secular ones but still failed in the end.

[RGacky3]

A) External pressure: These three instances were destroyed by the states operating the countries that they were created in. Franco's Spain destroyed Catalonia, The Third Republic crushed the Paris Commune, and the Free Territory in Ukraine was smashed by the Soviets.
B) Isolationism: These examples failed also because they didn't spread, which made implementing a new mode of production impossible, because of the lack of resources that isolated territories have.

Actually all 3 of those examples were actually destroyed by force.

[hatzel]

By the way, the religious kibbutzes in Israel lasted much longer than the secular ones but still failed in the end.

The crisis in the kibbutzim coincided with a general downturn in the wider Israeli economy, which they remain/ed wholly connected to. The crisis was/is a crisis of capitalism and the relationship between the kibbutzim and the capitalist economy they are necessarily reliant on when they seek to buy materials or sell finished products; the kibbutz networks are certainly not large enough to be self-sufficient, so such engagements with the capitalist market are unavoidable, however they may choose to manage themselves internally.

The degree to which they have 'failed' is debatable, as it presupposes a certain aim. They certainly still exist - I know a number of kibbutznikim - and continue to provide something like 40% of Israel's agricultural output, and make up a fair chunk of its techno-industry, too. In this respect, they seem to 'function,' and people certainly do work, despite your claims that people on communes will have no motivation to do anything. It's perhaps worth mentioning that those kibbutzim who continue to follow a 'purer' kibbutz-line (as opposed to those who have introduced reforms and partly abandoned communal living, for whatever reason) are the ones repaying a disproportionate amount of the total debt owed by the kibbutzim on behalf of those other communes in the networks who are struggling.

Of course they (and the numerous other communes established here and there throughout the years) remain part of the capitalist economy, rendering the various 'socialistic' elements of their internal management impotent (though far from insignificant), but still...they are productive and people do work as best they can. Despite your claims that those living in communal settlements would inevitably turn into a load of freeloaders. In fact, the kibbutzim have a reputation for producing outstanding individuals in far greater quantities than their populations suggest, and I see no reason any other commune should be any different. But still, again and again - in this thread and elsewhere, - demanding we set up communes to prove socialism works...well we have, and as much as they can't possibly be truly socialistic, they sure do seem to work.

So now what are we supposed to do, as you haven't been convinced by the convincer you asked of us? Because I'll be honest I see neither the possibility nor the need to convince you of the viability of a socialist system...

[NGNM85]

I think that threads like this obfuscate the reality of what really goes on, here in OI, that anyone who posts in these subforums already knows; the overwhelming majority of regulars in OI are not Right-Wingers, but Leftists, mainly Radicals, of varying stripes, who have been consigned to OI for failing some tenet of the (highly dubious) ideological purity test.

[l'Enfermé]

This has been tried before, in anarchist Catalonia, the Paris commune, the Free Territory in Ukraine, and has failed, because of two things. (Albeit that they were not socialist nor communist, but they were at least progressive).
A) External pressure: These three instances were destroyed by the states operating the countries that they were created in. Franco's Spain destroyed Catalonia, The Third Republic crushed the Paris Commune, and the Free Territory in Ukraine was smashed by the Soviets.
B) Isolationism: These examples failed also because they didn't spread, which made implementing a new mode of production impossible, because of the lack of resources that isolated territories have.

The Free Territory in Ukraine? Progressive? It was a brutal military dictatorship ran by an Ukrainian warlord(I'm not going to mention allegations of pogroms and and antisemitism, as they are not proven facts but are generally accepted to be slander, but interestingly enough, it was Makhno himself who forbade the hero Schwartzbard from assassinating the infamous Jew-murderer Petliura, so make your own conclusions)..the only thing progressive about it was the fact that they were temporarily used by Trotsky as a capable fighting force before he crushed them.

[Veovis]

Starting a socialist enclave in a capitalist world is like trying to light a candle in a swimming pool. It's all or nothing.

[l'Enfermé]

My advice:

Show the world that communism works. Go move to some communist society and write about how awesome life is there. If you can't find a suitable one, start one. If your ideology is so great, people will eventually become interested in it naturally. That's what we're trying to do with the New Hampshire thing.

No charge.

Communism isn't an "ideology", this is what we mean when we say that you have no idea what you're talking about.

[Rafiq]

Communism isn't an "ideology", this is what we mean when we say that you have no idea what you're talking about.

It is. It's a movement and an ideology. Marxism isn't, though.

[Dean]

The crisis in the kibbutzim coincided with a general downturn in the wider Israeli economy, which they remain/ed wholly connected to. The crisis was/is a crisis of capitalism and the relationship between the kibbutzim and the capitalist economy they are necessarily reliant on when they seek to buy materials or sell finished products; the kibbutz networks are certainly not large enough to be self-sufficient, so such engagements with the capitalist market are unavoidable, however they may choose to manage themselves internally.

Of course they (and the numerous other communes established here and there throughout the years) remain part of the capitalist economy, rendering the various 'socialistic' elements of their internal management impotent (though far from insignificant), but still...they are productive and people do work as best they can.

I generally agree with your post except for the implication here. When socialist or communist social organizations interface with capitalist economies, if the former are truly socialist - that is, they exact firm control over capital - they are incredibly resilient. This is mirrored in the western nations which today are very protectionist about their capital assets - think France and Germany. In those cases this is actually a fascist economic policy (the national interest is supreme, rather than the class interest) but the underlying policy and theory is the same as in capitalism: the class that controls the capital calls the shots. Pretty simple, until external fascist economies seek sanctions and free trade agreements meant to undermine these protectionist policies.

The problem is that when capital is free to move in and out of national borders, it moves to those areas with weaker emissions standards, labor standards, and wage rates. This encourages nations to adopt anti-worker policies to attract capital. Even protecting capital isn't enough - nations (or communes) need to invest heavily in capital expansion and development.

But with a sufficiently controlled matrix of expanding capital properties, communist societies have only had internal policies and external force to fear - the competition between capitalists outside of the region inevitably helps the communist model rather than hurting it. The problem is that this model is under virulent external pressure from day one of its existence anywhere, since it represents a massive loss in potential markets and profit for capitalist regimes and organizations.

[freigeist]

lol Why do you want right wingers to tell you this? Is this an admission that you think the left needs "fixing"? Is the left not perpetually perfect, and constrained only by the evils of capitalism?

OK, sarcasm aside, I don't think the "left" or the "right" actually exist. There is no way to categorize groups of people in this way. Anyone who self-identifies with a monolithic "left" or "right" is an idiot.

Having said that, my advice to the people who populate THIS forum was going to be to provide some empirical proof that your claims can work. But, apparently you all have a ready answer to this - the "it wasn't our fault, communism needs to be universal before it can work!" defense. OK, well that may be the case. But I'm sure you can see the problem here: You are asking for global power to implement policies that have scarcely worked on a local scale. To be honest, I really don't know what you can do about that. You have an image problem. You need to convince people that communism is going to work, and they need to give you power over the world before there will be any tangible benefits of it. Since you have no practical evidence of this, even on a local scale, you are dependent on abstract theory - which most people aren't interested in reading.

Having said all that, if capitalism is as horrible as you all say it is, it will fail catastrophically of it's own volition, some time in the future, and communism will have a chance to fill the vacuum. If that happens, whatever you do, don't stuff it up this time. Even if it's only in country, make it work, set an example. People are DEFINITELY not going to buy communism you you stuff it up TWICE.

Stop fighting amongst yourselves. I don't really know what the left is these days, apart from a dissolute bunch of people who don't like religion, capitalism, racism, etc. Many people call liberals "left", and they are not for abolishing capitalism. Maybe you guys should not even be claiming "left" at this point? Most of the self identified left-wingers I know don't agree with the ideals promoted by this board. This just harkens back to my first comment: these labels are worse than useless. Instead of calling your self "left", which really doesn't say anything, call yourselves Communists, Socialists, whatever you thiink specifies your beliefs. "left" doesn't mean anything, which I'm sure you know. I consider myself "left" in many ways, but I don't agree with a lot of the philosophies enforced here.

And good luck. Honestly.

[Genghis]

I'm genuinely curious - all you cappies, anti-leftists, OIers, etc..., let's just put your convictions about society aside for the moment.

Suppose some leftist group had a wealthy benefactor and, being the soul-less hypocrites you are, put out an ad for a non-leftist consultant who was nevertheless sufficiently fair to do the job they were hired to do and offer some concrete advice in exchange for considerable renumeration.

What would you recommend to leftists? How do you think they could raise their profile, possibly out-manouevre your ilk, and abolish capitalism? What advice would you, as an outside consultant, give to this leftist group?

Before I thank you suckers for the free advice, I guess I should clarify that I be interested in seeing if the right wingers have any CONSTRUCTIVE criticism of the left as a movement.

Be supportive of religion. I have written about it here.